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Literary Elements In The Things They Carried By Tim O Brien

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“The Things They Carried”, a story written by Tim O’Brien, is located within the small villages of Vietnam and is about O’Brien, who was drafted into the Vietnam War, alongside other soldiers of the Alpha Company, reacting and developing around the first friendly causality within the company, of whom was named Ted Lavender. The story continues on about how Vietnam was filled with immense boredom accompanied by a great awareness of the environment, allowing for the extreme imagination to rapidly overwhelm the company. With the story’s vast concept, the literary elements that are drawn in support for an accessible understanding include the overall theme(s) of the story, the characters described within the story, the writing style, and the diction …show more content…

Upon the death of Lavender and Lt. Cross putting the blame upon himself, he had decided to burn his distraction (which was told to be the reason for Lavender’s death-it could have been prevented) alongside disregarding his good luck pebble from Martha, a symbol O’Brien had used to depict classification for Cross. Thus, in this sequence, as Cross had “renewed” himself from distraction, it can be relatable to O’Brien as he represents Lt. Cross not with a pebble nor Martha, but rather a man who rehabilitated himself in response to the death of one of his men. Furthermore, throughout the story, O’Brien begins to categorize his fellow soldiers through the listing, indicating a weak relationship between everyone. However, as the story progresses after the death of Lavender, a conversing style of writing emerged (about Lavender’s death and how the soldiers were grateful to be alive), indicating emotional connection between O’Brien and the company amplified, such as when Kiowa noticed the Lieutenant being “…in some deep hurt [indicating]… The man cares.” Additionally, O’Brien, from there forth, begins to characterize the Alpha Company through their personal traits with phrases identical to, “For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity” or the general reactions and responses the soldiers produced before, during, and after a firefight including embarrassment and apprehensive sentiment to die and the jokingly conversing subsequent to the battle. This transition from illustrating characters through objects to personal traits and empathy may assume the narrator had increased his connection among his companions, sharing similar insight, undergoing equivalent events, and so forth. Accordingly,

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Shame and self-hatred surface when Lieutenant Cross realizes “…Ted Lavender [is] dead because he [loves] her [Martha] so much and [cannot] stop thinking about her” (326). Furthermore, the pebble that once symbolized his affection for Martha is replaced with a figurative “stone in his stomach” (332), representative of his guilt. In order to begin to remove his distracting infatuation with Martha, Cross takes the following action: “On the morning after Ted Lavender [dies], First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross [crouches] at the bottom of his foxhole and [burns] Martha’s letters. Then he [burns] the two photographs” (336). Cross’ burning of Martha’s letters and photographs is a physical representation of the transformation in his personality and priorities.

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In The Things They Carried there was a lot going on in my essay. I had a weak thesis to, I did not explain how the rhetorical devices O’Brien used was significant to the audience, and I did not have a conclusion. First, for my thesis, I kept most of the order I had before, but deleted the metaphor part and moved it somewhere else. Also, in my body paragraphs, I was skipping important ideas such as the most important: the audience, I had to make sure I wrote about how O’Brien’s rhetorical devices affected them. Such as when he use polysyndeton it was so that the readers understand that soldiers did not have one feeling throughout the war but multiple.

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The first chapter of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried gives a detailed description of something each soldier carried. You’re presented with a photo First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries, the extra rations that Henry Dobbins carries and the tranquilizers that Ted Lavender carries and an explanation behind each object. In each explanation there are rhetorical devices used to intrigue the reader and help further develop each character. O’Brien, on page 143, is focusing on Norman Bowker in the town he lived in as a child. O’ Brien conveys this part of the novel by personifying, creating dialogue, and giving an illustration that appeals to sound and sight.

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“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.” ― Logan Pearsall Smith Logan Pearsall Smith, an American-born British essayist, comments on how good authors convey a deeper meaning in their work than what is simply written. Tim O 'Brien, the author of “The Things They Carried,” and Carl Hiaasen, the author of “Skinny Dip,” both use this technique in their writing. In both novels, the authors share details of the setting to inflict guilt onto the story’s character. Tim O’Brien emphasizes the struggles of war through the setting and shows how it affects the soldiers’ views of blame in the novel “The Things They Carried.”

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He is conflicted with the emotional burden of loving Martha and his responsibility to his men. Cross is the Lieutenant of this platoon, meaning that he is their leader and ultimately responsible for the outcome of all their lives. Even though it is easy to see how these men need an escape to help them survive the daily task of fighting, the illusions of being somewhere else can result in additional weight being

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Choose one of the motifs from The Things They Carried and explain its significance In his 1990 novel, The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien uses various motifs,Some of the motifs used are the haze, the jungle, the muck, and the darkness of night. Throughout the stories, the narrator repeatedly describes the vapors and haze that settled over the landscape. For instance, the narrator describes the 'wet and swirly and tangled up' haze that obscures the jungle. The vapors spook the soldiers, making them feel tense, as if something or someone is haunting them.

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Death Is a Powerful Motivator In “The Things They Carried”, Tim O’Brien, the author, portrays his own experience in the Vietnam War. Although O’Brien fabricated some of the stories and exaggerated some of the parts, the main idea O’Brien wished to display is present. He wanted to allow the reader a view of the war along with the physical burdens and emotional burdens the soldiers carried with them. These burdens effected the soldiers and helped define them as people.

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Readers, especially those reading historical fiction, always crave to find believable stories and realistic characters. Tim O’Brien gives them this in “The Things They Carried.” Like war, people and their stories are often complex. This novel is a collection stories that include these complex characters and their in depth stories, both of which are essential when telling stories of the Vietnam War. Using techniques common to postmodern writers, literary techniques, and a collection of emotional truths, O’Brien helps readers understand a wide perspective from the war, which ultimately makes the fictional stories he tells more believable.

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Both a novel and a collection of interrelated short stories, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried is a book that emerges from a complex variety of literary standards. O'Brien presents to his readers both a war journal and a writer's autobiography, and complicates this presentation by creating a fictional protagonist who shares his name. To fully comprehend and appreciate the novel, particularly the passages that gloss the nature of writing and storytelling, it is important to remember that the work is fictional rather than a conventional non-fiction, historical account. Protagonist "Tim O'Brien" is a middle-aged writer and Vietnam War veteran. The primary action of the novel is "O'Brien's" remembering the past and working and reworking the

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Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried focuses on the US war in Vietnam. In this novel the author provides numerous details about the war and tries to riseraise as many important themes based on situations. as possible. which are important according to the situation. O’Brien was a participant in the war himself.

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Prewriting: Introduction: Often revered as a battle to defend Vietnamese ideologies, the Vietnam War is personified by many as a horrendous, unnecessary war that yielded to many detrimental after-effects, specifically on soldiers. In O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, initially it seems to take the same old generic personification, but after further reading, it is evident that Tim O’Brien’s desire to take on a different representation. Rather than taking on the violent, bloody interpretation of war, O’Brien focuses more on the relationships developed between the soldier and the severities experienced whilst in war. Throughout the novel, the themes of shame and guilt are manifested through the post war stories of the veterans, demonstrating that no soldier is able to escape this perpetual chasm of culpability.

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Tim O’Brien’s book, The Things They Carried, is not a casual story based on war, but divided stories that paint a picture of veterans and what they were developing during and after the war. O’Brien brings up hard hitting points in each book that affects a reader in so many ways. O’Brien uses his novel with symbolisms to deeply understand characters, types of grieving each character is affiliated with, and more so what these characters carry emotionally, mentally, and figuratively throughout the book, nevertheless, making these characters relatable with actual people. O’Brien’s characters are all different, Jimmy Cross was a lieutenant who’s in love and is not desired to lead his men to fight for their own freedom and stop war. Azar is a disrespectful,

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The Things They Carried “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien is a short story set during the Vietnam War. In the story, O’Brien lists many different items soldiers in the Alpha Company carried with them as they humped across the rugged terrain. Many carried necessities such as rations, matches, ammunition and things of that nature; however, many soldiers also carried quite peculiar objects such as condoms, pantyhose, and M&Ms. Readers can grasp a closer insight of the characters’ lives after further examination of the symbolism and meaning of the things they carried.

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O’Brien’s intended audience was young people who were not educated about the war and he discussed the themes shame/guilt and mortality/death. The chapter “The Things They Carried” gives an introduction about the men in the group, it also shows shame/guilt. The chapter talks about the equipment each soldier carried and how it affected them. During this chapter it focuses primarily on LT.

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The things they carried is a novel by Tim O’Brien. About the Vietnam war. About the lives of people going there. It’s a collection of war stories. Some of them true, some of the untrue and that’s the main topic that’ll be discussed in this paper.

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